Abstract
The nuclear pore complex (NPC) is a biological machine that regulates all transport into and out of the cell nucleus. A fundamental question in cell biology is how the NPC facilitates selective transport of large cargos such as viral capsids, ribosomes and mRNA ribonucleo protein complexes while impeding unspecific transport of cargos an order of magnitude smaller. In this project, we will use viral capsids as physiologically relevant models of large cargos, and apply a range of tools from virology, nanotechnology and biophysics, including bottom-up assembled DNA-origami-based NPC mimics, to understand their molecular interactions with the NPC.
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